Thank You for the Blessings - March 1, 2010

Good morning on this first day of March! The weather may still say, "winter", but the calendar says March and that means spring is not far away. We try to accomplish many good works, and sometimes we catch ourselves expecting a reward for those works. Jesus told us that our reward awaits in Heaven. So where do all these good things come from in our lives, if they aren't rewards? We like to call them blessings.

You might have an old car that doesn't usually start without certain words that we won't repeat here. You go out one morning and - vrrooom! - off you go to work. Perhaps you don't consider the destination a blessing, but the car started this morning! Perhaps you have an old PC that takes 'practically forever' to boot up in the morning, but today the old computer boots up just fine and even your e-mail program is ready to go for you. Maybe you have a body or a buddy that just doesn't motivate and energize like it once did. Today the old thing is up and at 'em, ready to start the day. What a blessing! We need to take the time to thank God for those blessings.

Our reward awaits us in Heaven, but the blessings are here now! Some days we might have to look harder than others for those blessings. Recently we haven't had to look hard at all to realize what a blessing it is that our town or city isn't being shaken by an earthquake; we've heard much about a couple of big ones lately. This morning my heat pump decided to act up again, possibly due to the power blip we had last night. The blessing is that I can reset the thing, power it up again and we have heat in the house! I did apologize to the cats for letting it get so cold. Another blessing is that I have electrical power to heat the house. I didn't have to make a fire with my kitchen table.

In my research, I found that back in the day, many a family might survive the winter, but be short a few pieces of cherished furniture come springtime. We don't have to do that any longer and what a blessing that is! Yes, we can afford to take the time to thank our Lord for the many blessings we have in this lifetime. Too many blessings to list here, but let's get started!

Bucky